2006 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES -- DOPING RAID; Trying to Get an Edge on the Competition

By BEDEL SAGET

Published: February 24, 2006

Last Saturday night, 10 athletes from the Austrian Olympic biathlon and cross-country skiing teams were brought in by the International Olympic Committee for testing.

The I.O.C. said yesterday that more time was needed to check for prohibited substances, including EPO (erythropoietin), a bloodboosting hormone. The Austrian athletes were suspected of blood doping, a method used mostly by endurance athletes to increase their red blood cell count.

Increasing the amount of red cells increases the amount of oxygen delivered to the muscles, allowing them to work more efficiently. If athletes can safely elevate their red cell levels, they can potentially increase their efficiency by 5 to 10 percent. This may mean the difference between winning and losing.

To an elite athlete, this 5 to 10 percent edge may far outweigh the potential cardiovascular health risks involved, such as stroke, heart attack and kidney damage.

There are three common methods of doping -- auto-transfusions and EPO, which are against the rules, and training at high altitudes, which is not. All three methods require out-of-competition experimentation and work best when they are used as close to competition as possible. BEDEL SAGET